One thought on “A Jangada de Pedra”

As I was getting ready to travel around the Iberian Peninsula and fly to Porto, I pulled out this book detaching it from the bookshelves to which it belonged Since it had been in my shelves for quite a few years, I dreaded that in its immobility it had petrified and that it had lost its nature as a book But no, there it was, flexible as a thin stack of paper, and with the pages printed, ready for my eyes to scan its graphics And ready for travel too.Saramago s novel chronicles how the Iberian Pe [...]

Brexit ForefeltSpain and Portugal float away from Europe as a disunited kingdom, leaving Gibraltar behind, a lonely Atlantic island Written in 1986 about the Iberian leave taking from continental Europe, The Stone Raft is the perfect book for Brexit 2016 A clich , I know, but not an un useful one Separation from the rest of Europe is just not easy emotionally for either party A loving mother, Europe was saddened by the misfortune of her lands on the extreme west All sorts of connections journali [...]

This early novel can be seen as the precursor or model for Saramago s later surreal modern parables Blindness, Seeing, and Death at Intervals, all of which explore the consequences of changing one of the natural laws society takes for granted It has a similar mixture of philosophy, humour and the political and personal As in all of his novels, Saramago s style is idiosyncratic, with long and apparently rambling sentences broken only by occasional commas.This time the starting point occurs when a [...]

A jangada de pedra The stone raft, Jos Saramago The Stone Raft Portuguese A Jangada de Pedra is a novel by Nobel Prize in Literature winning Portuguese writer Jos Saramago It was written in 1986 The premise of the novel is that the Iberian Peninsula has broken off the European continent and is floating freely in the Atlantic Ocean bureaucrats around the world are forced to deal with the traumatic effects, while five characters from across Portugal and Spain are drawn ever closer to one another, [...]

3.5 stars Two moths ago on vacation I bought the stone raft a jangada de pedra by Jos Saramago nobel prize in literature 1998 in one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world, Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal my country This somptuous bookshop inspired the Harry Potter s library in Hogwarts In fact, J.K Rowling lived in Porto teaching English in the early 1990s If you ever come to Portugal you should visit it just saying PortugueseAuthor Dific limo acto o de escrever, responsabilidade das m [...]

Mr Saramago came to call well I mean I invited him in he doesn t just turn up on your doorstep uninvited that would be rude, wouldn t it, well, maybe not rude but discourteous and my impression of him is that he would never be knowingly discourteous, I don t think it s in his nature, which seems to me to be warm, like that lovely feeling you get when you ve had a glass of something stronger, there s that warm glow that starts somewhere inside and spreads until it reaches your face and puts a smi [...]

The magical tale of The Stone Raft is developed within a complex plot, where outcrop different ways of living and loving, to problematize the concepts of sexuality and questions the psychology of feelings The barely contained surprise that the narrator recounts successes that undermine values and beliefs firmly held, the irony of dialogic defense, the discreet access to deciphering the narrative codes capable of ambiguity, create the text in fruition conditions, giving the pleasure of reading Th [...]

Saramago s works not only keep me up late into the night reading, they also wake me from sleep in those hours after midnight that belong to death than to life and force me to think again both about the words he has written and about those he has not The Stone Raft is as multi layered as the strata exposed when the Iberian Peninsula separates from the continent of Europe and begins an erratic journey through the Atlantic Ocean There is, of course, the expected magical realism together with Saram [...]

This is a great read a magic realism thriller, if you will about the Iberian peninsular breaking away from mainland Europe I m not the biggest MR fan in the world and faced with the prospect of pages and pages of dense prose, I wasn t looking forward to this one much, but Saramago s prose really does sing The sentences are long but the story moves forwards, it s not wilfuly obtuse or pretentious and is actually quite exciting The book is warm, wise and interesting.

I admit, I love Saramago s work, but I would only recommend The Stone Raft to his most ardent fans If you are intrigued by the idea of the Iberian peninsula breaking off of Europe and the possible ramifications thereof, you have missed the point and will be thoroughly disappointed The Stone Raft is beautifully written of course , but Saramago meanders, philosophizes, uses allegory and parables, all towards what seemed to be an existentialist tale of five wanderers of the Iberian peninsula plus o [...]

Physical secession of Iberian peninsula presents novel opportunities for mating We are told at the opening that the entire universe was nearing its end on account of the chorus of dogs in Cerbere 1 We are reminded the world is coming to an end before the end 260 Though this is presented as hearsay within the setting, it s an accurate designation of the genre, as the novel adopts the apocalyptic It s mostly a travelogue, though, both of the peninsula and several characters thereupon Those parts a [...]

The Pyrenees cut in half, oops, never border crossing as part of the Tour de France, how awful.It gets worse, how about those people from all over Europe pilgriming to Santiago de Compostella.It gets potentially catastrophic, if the course of the drifting Iberian peninsula actually island would reach land But then there s always the repetitive appeasement that the president of the United States of North America will take care of those in need what a relieve that you can rely on him Well, that w [...]

Using as pillar the opposite of Portugal s accession to EU, Saramago managed to create an ironic political allegory, spiced up with mythological elements and his now familiar fine humor In other words, another masterpiece

Such an interesting concept for a book, yet it was SO BORING I loved the first 20 pages, and then, POOF, it was gone I was all like, Dude, where did you go I thought we were cool And the book was all like, Sorry dude, I gotta be me.